In The Interest of Public Safety…
Regulate It Already!
DISCLAIMER: This is no way intended to advocate for the manufacture, importation, distribution or use of marijuana for recreational use. The content here is designed to be used to generate innovative and creative dialogue about legalized marijuana and the Homeland Security Enterprise.
Many States struggle with legalizing and de-criminalizing marijuana. But let’s be honest with ourselves: marijuana isn’t going away. The current criminalization of marijuana negatively impacts our ability to control it, costs money and resources, clogs up the courts, and needlessly imprisons petty offenders. This isn’t working
Laws that legalize it involve taking jail time off the table as well as help to ensure that owners of small quantities of marijuana don’t end up with criminal records. These are positive first steps in changing drug policy. But State legislatures, except Colorado, have been far too timid in their approach. A safe and regulated industry will work to control dangerous levels of THC, which is the major concern about the substance. It is tempting to take a wait-and-see approach to most policies, especially when venturing into untested waters. In the case of marijuana, however, there are two major problems with this logic.
First, Colorado already presents an example of successful marijuana legalization. Crime is down, state marijuana tax revenues are up , and it has become harder for minors to get marijuana because pot shops are more likely to card than drug dealers.Unfounded concerns of overdoses are also being allayed through low dose alternatives offered by vendors. Legalization opponents need to show why these differences will produce radically different outcomes for legalization. Opponents of legalization may cite tired statistics about the risk of dependency for marijuana, particularly among those who start smoking while young, but these harms are not unique to pot. These same potentials for dependency exist for alcohol, yet nobody is calling for a return to prohibition.
Second, Recent findings by Johns Hopkins University show that people are more likely to oppose treatment associated with drug addiction due to the negative image associated with drug use. No matter your opinion on whether drug use is amoral, the fact that it still carries the stigma of a criminal penalty only leads to reduced opportunities for people to get the help they need. The urgency for changes comes from the fact that while marijuana is a given, the problems associated with marijuana prohibition are not. There are people who have had their lives ruined through the stigma of a criminal record and, for many, time lost in prison. Those convicted of marijuana-related crimes are going to have tremendous difficulties finding employment, ultimately making them less productive than they would be as marijuana users.
Marijuana decriminalization would help free up money (Or add additional money as seen in the image below) that could be spent on dealing with far more dangerous drug problems and the crime associated with them (like cartels and smuggling). Successful reform acts state that the harms of marijuana laws outweigh the benefits in the cases where they have decriminalized it. This is certainly true, if States embrace a bolder legalization and regulation agenda, they would be able to unlock the issues listed above.
What do you think?
